Purple and Gold Fat Quarter Quilt

It's been awhile since I have sewn with fat quarters. I bought a 28 fat quarter bundle and sorted them, the purple, pink, and gold ones for this quilt, while I'm saving the rest for another. The solid pink, purple, and gold fabrics were whole yards that came from the same collection as the fat quarters.

Random, almost scrappy quilt designs have been the main idea behind my last few quilts. Unlike my no measuring quilts, there is actually an easy to follow pattern, it's just hidden behind the randomness. Sometimes getting the "scrappy look" without truly sewing with scraps can be a challenge. What I love about the random look is you see it and instantly know it is a handmade quilt. I made a quilt with similar colors a year ago with my Linked Stars Pattern.

Purple and gold Linked Stars.

The decorative stitches around the borders are something I had a lot of fun with in this quilt. All the quilting was done in a dark gold thread, except for the finishing binding stitch and one of the outer border stitches, those I used pale gold thread for. I used a blanket stitch on the edges of the inner purple border so it would frame the border with a pretty golden edging. Just outside the inner border I quilted 3 different decorative stitches, plus a straight stitch.

Outside the inner border, on the outer border, I quilted two decorative stitches. One of them is my favorite quilting stitch, the simple scallop stitch. I considered quilting loops around the outer border just outside the two decorative stitches, but I love the puffy and soft handmade quilt look that far apart quilting creates. This is also the reason I quilted the diamonds in the center so large.

The double diamonds are my new favorite quilting method! I used to do traditional cross hatching, like on my Peppermint Pieces Quilt, but then I tried sewing the lines at different angles. Eventually I decided to quilt two lines beside each other instead of the single line. In my Butterflies and Ladybugs Quilt, I quilted 3 lines next to each other. I also used a different colored thread for each line. It really makes the diamond pattern pop without adding too much additional quilting. The more quilting you add, the stiffer the quilt becomes. This is useful for table runners and toppers that you want to lay nice and flat, but for lap quilts and larger I love the soft and puffy feel looser quilting gives.

It isn't often that I make quilts with more neutral colors. One of the last big quilts I made, Petals in the Wind, was full of teal, yellow, bright blue, and pink. It also had a lot of white space, something this new quilt lacks. I love trying as many different quilt color schemes and patterns as I can. Something else different about this quilt is that I tried to offset the blocks instead of lining them up. I did this by placing a strip of fabric on top of the blocks in the left and right rows, then I put the same strips on the bottoms of the center row. You can see this in the Block Placement Diagram below.

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